Matthew Norman: The special relationship is a sad joke
In return for destroying himself by joining the Iraq invasion, Mr Blair has received less than nothing

Published: 08 June 2007
To the last, he sustains the fantasy with a crazed fortitude verging on the heroic. Admittedly, Tony Blair has downgraded his bullishness day by day, his early week certainty gradually giving way to cautious optimism that he will, by the end of the G8 summit, have persuaded George Bush to make a meaningful commitment to reduce US carbon emissions. Yet still, at the eleventh hour and 59th minute of his period in office, with the removal vans literally outside No 10, he continues chirpily to insist that he has real leverage with the President of the United States.

That Mr Bush has no intention of making such a commitment, and that the entire world understands this, is irrelevant. After all, Mr Blair understands it better than anyone, because however delusional we may think him, he is neither an imbecile nor an amnesiac. He knows that the US refusal to enter a binding agreement without China is a de facto veto on specific targets to cut emissions, since China is no more prepared to subdue its economic growth than America.

The conceit that the Big Oil front man gives a toss about climate change isn't worth bothering with. Nor will Mr Blair have forgotten the results of all previous efforts to cajole Mr Bush into doing the right thing, most notably regarding a more even-handed approach to the Palestinians. In return for destroying himself by joining the invasion of Iraq, Mr Blair has received less than nothing. He couldn't even dissuade the President from imposing damaging steel tariffs on the EU.

Yet the charade that the British PM has serious influence in Washington must be sustained in the interest of the "special relationship", even now, when the salient points of this phantasmal entity's history have become so familiar that they feel like old, and rather tedious, friends.

Even before Churchill coined the phrase in 1946, the US had struck a hard bargain in return for lend-lease, and sent battleships to Cape Town to collect British gold in part settlement of the debt. This brutal, almost Mafiosi expression of power set the tone for all that followed. As Andrew Marr recounted in his BBC2 series, when the summary withdrawal of American aid propelled Britain towards post-war bankruptcy, Attlee sent Milton Friedman to Washington to beg an interest-free loan of $8bn. All the US gave him was $4bn, with interest. We made the last repayment only late last year.

So it went on. While Germany and Japan paid for their aggression with booming economies, Britain, economically ravaged by two world wars, had no choice but to yield sovereignty, allowing US air bases on its soil and nuclear submarines in its waters, becoming a kind of client kingdom in return for sporadic and costly US economic assistance.

The first attempt at major independent military action ended the moment Eisenhower expressed his understandable fury over Suez. When the next came, Reagan remained studiedly neutral in public over the Falklands. In between, the absolute reliance on US support to keep sterling from collapsing prevented Harold Wilson condemning the Vietnam war, to the dismay of naïve colleagues who affected not to appreciate what an epic achievement it was to avoid sending British troops.

As the senior State Department adviser, Kendall Myers, pointed out a few months ago, there never was a special relationship ("or at least not one we noticed"), and the myth has now completed its mutation into a sad joke. Soon after Britain signed a wilfully unequal extradition treaty that saw us handing over the NatWest Three without a shred of prima facie evidence of any crime, the Pentagon contemptuously disdained the inquests into the friendly fire killing of Lance-Corporal Matty Hull, threatening to prosecute papers that published transcripts of the cockpit recordings it had to hand over.

So much for the potted history of the "special relationship", but what of its future? With opinion polls capturing the British public's fatigue at the obeisance (64 per cent believe our future lies more with Europe, according to Populus, and an almost identical number want Anglo-American ties loosened), it seems expedient for Gordon Brown to waste no time easing Downing Street out from "right up the White House's arse", to borrow the navigational instruction to Christopher Meyer when he became Ambassador in Washington.

Obviously this needn't involve re-enacting the Love Actually scene where Hugh Grant tells the President to bugger off, pleasing as that would be, let alone the subplot of A Very British Coup, in which leftie PM Harry Perkins peremptorily tells the Americans to remove their air bases and finds alternative funding from the Kremlin.

All it means is publicly acknowledging the realpolitik that Britain, far from close to bankruptcy any more, has nothing to gain from ingratiation, because the Americans have never given us a carrot for it, and they never will; and that national self-interest demands not supplication but the sort of candour and independence that may begin the arduous process of rebuilding Britain's reputation.

Brown could easily send out a message within weeks of taking office. He could repeal that extradition treaty, and request the return of the Nat West Three pending hard evidence that they committed anything that constitutes a crime in Britain. He could pop into the Larry King studio en route to the Oval Office, and spell out the danger inherent in America failing to cut oil use in the vague hope that some miraculous technological advances arrives, like some hydrogen-based deus ex machina, to make everything all right. He could even ask the Americans to reverse their desecration of Grosvenor Square, where the concrete ramps, steel railings and Portakabins stretch ever further from the embassy building to paint a depressing, hideous portrait of arrogant colonial might.

He'll do no such thing, of course. The idea is almost as fantastical as the special relationship itself because, apart from his innate caution, Gordon is at least as fervent an Atlantacist as Mr Blair, and seems no less convinced that Britain's play-acting at being a major power depends as much on subservience to Washington as the permanent seat on the UN Security Council and the shamefully profligate decision to upgrade Trident.

So it won't be long before he's standing beneath the imperial eagle at one of those twin lectern White House press conferences, intoning: "Mr President, I'm sure you know how deeply we value the special relationship between our great nations." And when Mr Bush reciprocates the sentiment, his valiant fight to suppress the scornful Frat Boy smirk will be all the carefully nuanced commentary this outmoded ritual strictly demands.​

Encouraging, at least, that the article mentions that 64% of Britons recognize that the UK's place is with Europe. Indeed, the only way that the UK will be a significant international player again is if they throw their hat in with the EU. The relationship with the US is pathetic indeed.

It's interesting to see a plea for realpolitik couched in such sour, nationalistic grumbling. Kind of takes most of the edge off, if you ask me. It's also interesting to read a history of the U.S.-British relationship during the Cold War period with nary a mention of the Cold War itself. Ah, to be blessed with such a short and selective memory.

If in fact a solid majority of Britons are today so clearly Europe-leaning, then why has Britain so conspicuously avoided becoming a full participant in the EU? Blair's seduction by George W. is hardly an explanation, not that we're offered one. So much easier to complain about how the U.S. done Britain wrong.

It's also interesting to read a history of the U.S.-British relationship during the Cold War period with nary a mention of the Cold War itself. Ah, to be blessed with such a short and selective memory.

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Perhaps you'd like to fill in the blanks? What should we mention about the Cold War?

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If in fact a solid majority of Britons are today so clearly Europe-leaning, then why has Britain so conspicuously avoided becoming a full participant in the EU?

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In what way? Not being a member of the Eurozone? In every other way the UK is a full and leading member.

Perhaps you'd like to fill in the blanks? What should we mention about the Cold War?

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Something. Anything at all? The complete absence of historical context is pretty appalling really, especially if the writer is going imply that the U.S. invaded Britain quite against its will. This may even be the popular view today, but was is then?

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In what way? Not being a member of the Eurozone? In every other way the UK is a full and leading member.

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Yes, monetary union. This would be one marker in the relationship between Europe and Britain, which would seem to be not quite so completely warm and fuzzy as the writer implies.

In what way? Not being a member of the Eurozone? In every other way the UK is a full and leading member.

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I don't think that's entirely true, although I don't remember all the specifics. How has the UK voted on issues like strengthening the EU politically (like putting more issues under the qualified majority voting instead of unanimity), or militarily.

I think the UK has been more interested in the economic union type of EU rather than a united states of Europe type EU.

I don't think that's entirely true, although I don't remember all the specifics. How has the UK voted on issues like strengthening the EU politically (like putting more issues under the qualified majority voting instead of unanimity), or militarily.

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The UK has certainly not refused alone. And after all, it was France which scuppered the EU Constitution.

I disagree entirely with the invasion hypothesis, but the relationship has certainly been marked by a long series of dreadfully one-sided agreements.

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It takes two to make a one-sided relationship. The really odd implication is that Britain has somehow been suckered into a dysfunctional relationship with the U.S., and that all this wool-pulling has somehow survived decades and a succession governments of various political stripes on both sides of the Atlantic. That reasoning is very difficult to accept right on the face of it.

The irony here is that the writer is advocating for a more realpolitik approach to British foreign policy, which is fine, but then he begs the question "where have British interests been all along?" If Britain's interests have so clearly lain closer to their historical (ahem) friends in Europe than with America, then why haven't British governments pursued this alliance with more vigor?

It's all well and good to look at the state of U.S.-British relations in the wake of six disastrous years of Bushism, provided we're not peering down the wrong end of the telescope. Also over here we're having a hard time forgetting that Mr. Blair survived quite nicely as Bush's dupe, if that's what this analysis makes him. A great deal more is going on here than the writer allows, I think.

The Eurozone is the most obvious as you've mentioned. It made sense in a way as long as the UK was a net exporter of oil. Now that those days are over, there seems to be little excuse to not come on board.

Tony's insistence on holding his European partners at arms length is pretty obvious. Unless I'm mistaken, his time at the helm was more about what was happening outside of the EU rather than what was taking place within.

The dumping of a foreign language requirement is another obvious move away from Europe and towards an imaginary world where everyone speaks English.

Lack of leadership in such areas as Turkey and the Balkans, much less his lack of interest eastern Europe.

Shall I go on?

Of course, I'm mostly bringing up things about Blair but Brown ahead and Maggie and Major in the past weren't very interested in their EU partners either.

I love the people of the Isles. I am not embarrassed to say, on the whole I would much rather be amongst their company.

I have often wondered why GB continued to support our misguided foreign policy. Unlike most Americans, they are actually learned about world events. it is almost shameful how great the knowledge difference is. I did not know we were extorting them to support our policies. I am ashamed.

A great deal of the fault is with the self-delusion of our own leaders. Blair by all accounts was as gung-ho on his own account as Bush on the Iraq question: I think he misread PNAC as "Project for a New Anglo-Saxon Century".

A lot of good would come of dropping the absurd pretence that the UK has an "independent" nuclear deterrent, when it is common knowledge that it is entirely unusable without American agreement.

Of course, I'm mostly bringing up things about Blair but Brown ahead and Maggie and Major in the past weren't very interested in their EU partners either.

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Common misconception about Maggie. Although she made great statements saying she was anti-European, she did sign the Maastricht Treaty and take the UK into the European Monetary Union (which Major later removed us from). When EU interests were at conflict with UK interests she made a huge noise about it, as did Mitterand in France, but in the main she took us further into the EU.

Blair also was the main advocate for speeding the expansion of the EU eastwards, leading to the 12 new member states from the old Soviet bloc. I think what was feared there was economic meltdown leading to political unrest. Having EU membership means not only that the citizens of those countries can find work anywhere in the Union, but also that EU development money becomes available for them to build up their own economies.

EDIT : Thinking about it it wasn't Maastricht she signed after all. What is the one I'm thinking of?

A great deal of the fault is with the self-delusion of our own leaders. Blair by all accounts was as gung-ho on his own account as Bush on the Iraq question: I think he misread PNAC as "Project for a New Anglo-Saxon Century".

A lot of good would come of dropping the absurd pretence that the UK has an "independent" nuclear deterrent, when it is common knowledge that it is entirely unusable without American agreement.

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There you have it, in a nutshell. Blair's position on Iraq was not the result of his being duped by the U.S., and U.S.-British relations during the Cold War was a rather complicated business.

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